Lifesaving Acts: The Importance of Blood Donation

What if your simple act of kindness could save a life? Join us as we spotlight the critical importance of blood donation in honor of World Blood Donor Day on June 14th. Through a deeply personal narrative, we share how blood donations extended my mother's life during her battle with leukemia, inspiring me to start donating platelets myself. Our guest, Pat Michaels from OneBlood, sheds light on the organization's mission and operations across multiple states, offering valuable insights into the logistics of blood collection and distribution, and the pivotal role regular donors play.

Don't miss out on hearing about the Share Your Power Podcast, featuring inspirational stories that make the topic even more relatable and inspiring.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Perspective. Perspective is spelled P-E-R-S-P-E-C-T-I-V-E. Perspective the 30,000 foot view. Perspective put on someone else's shoes. Perspective can also refer to the state of existing in space or one's view of the world. Perspective R-E-A audio.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Reemployability. My mom passed away from leukemia a little over five years ago and as her disease progressed, I'll never forget her telling my dad and I how grateful she was for people that donated blood platelets. She had to get platelets pretty frequently and they were one of the reasons why she was with us as long as she was while she was sick. So I guess in a way I'm grateful to those people as well. It inspired me to donate platelets after she was gone. People have all kinds of reasons for making blood donations. Some are personal, some are just because they always have, and for some it's simply peer pressure. I see that when the blood bus comes to re employability. So why all the blood talk? Well, june 14th is World Blood Donor Day, and this year marks 20 years of celebrating the giving.

Speaker 2: 1:16

According to the WHO website, the objectives of World Blood Donor Day are fourfold To thank and recognize the millions of voluntary blood donors who have contributed to the health and well-being of millions of people around the world. To showcase the achievements and challenges of national blood programs and share best practices and lessons learned. To highlight the continuous need for regular, unpaid blood donations. To achieve universal access to safe blood transfusion. And, finally, to promote a culture of regular blood donation among young people and the general public and increase the diversity and sustainability of the blood donor pool.

Speaker 2: 1:55

What's interesting is when I was roaming the halls here at Reemployability in an effort to get some sound bites as to why folks around here donate, I was greeted with expressions that said everything from none of your business to I really don't know. So, even though I can't see your face, I'm interested to know do you donate blood? Why do you, or don't you? In an effort to do our part and help promote blood donation, I've invited Pat Michaels with OneBlood, an organization that provides blood services in Florida, georgia and the Carolinas, to talk with us so we can learn more about their mission and blood donations as a whole.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Blood donation is a voluntary procedure that can help save the lives of others. There are several types of blood donation which help meet different medical needs. In whole blood donation you donate about a pint of whole blood that is then separated into components like red cells, plasma and platelets. During apheresis you are hooked up to a machine that can collect in separate components and return unused components back to you.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Pat Michaels is the director of media and public relations with OneBlood. Oneblood is an organization that serves five states in the southeast for blood donations. Pat, thanks so much for being on RAA Audio. It's a pleasure to see you and speak with you.

Speaker 3: 3:09

Yeah, thanks, todd, it's a pleasure here. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: 3:12

So, oneblood, we're in Florida and I know you're in Orlando, we're in Tampa, and so OneBlood has been in my blood for years and years, and years since we've been here. So you're the organization that handles blood donations in Florida and Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama also, right?

Speaker 3: 3:31

That's right. Yeah, we started out as some smaller individual blood centers. The one that you probably have gone to originally was called Florida Blood Services and then we merged with another blood center in Orlando called Florida's Blood Centers, and one is Miami called Community. I won't bore you with all of it. And then we continued with Jacksonville, tallahassee, pensacola, parts of Georgia, north Carolina, south Carolina, and we also do blood drives in Alabama. So now OneBlood is the second largest independent, non-profit blood center in the country. The American Red Cross is the largest.

Speaker 3: 4:10

Then we have two other big blood centers, so it allows us to have the ability to take blood donations over a large area, which means that we're more efficient. We have economy of scales in so many ways. We have laboratories in multiple states that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and people wonder when they get on the big red bus or go into a donor center, where's it going? Well, what happens to my blood donation? And that's been our effort over the last few years to let people, let donors, know where their blood donation is going and how it's being used, and also how they can best donate. And you know you have done that in your donation career. You know you've given platelets and also whole blood. So there are different ways to do it and that's our mission, that's my mission is to let people know about it.

Speaker 2: 5:07

So June 14th is World Blood Donor Day. It's the 20 year anniversary and we talked a little bit about earlier on the podcast. I mentioned a little bit about the WHO's website and their explanation is kind of the why behind that. But locally and I'm glad you mentioned a couple things there you know you go, you say the big red bus. If you're in other parts of the country you're not familiar that's. That's like the iconic symbol of one blood. It is.

Speaker 3: 5:34

We have all over we have asked people uh, you know, in focus groups in the past, where had where'd you donate? You know, uh, and they'll say, well, I donated on somewhere, some blood center, but I'm not. Well, what did you donate on the Big Red Boss? So actually it really is the icon of the center.

Speaker 2: 5:55

You see them rolling all over the place, over the Bay Area, central Florida, the multiple places in all five States, yeah, so, um, what you do specifically for these five States is very similar to, I'm sure, what other organizations across the country do, right? So, so, even though, even though you're located in these five States, um, really, what we're going to talk about is probably a very similar process to any place else. If I were to donate in Los Angeles or in Chicago, in Kansas City, right so, walk us through that process. So I want to give blood because I feel like it's the right thing to do. Tell us who does it go to and how does it get there, and that's probably a huge question. So I'm going to say roll with that.

Speaker 3: 6:41

It is, and let me tell you that OneBlood operates, like you said, like other blood centers, we're heavily regulated by the federal government. A lot of people may not know that we're regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Sounds strange, but when you think about it, blood donations being transfused is kind of like a drug.

Speaker 3: 6:59

So we are regulated. We have an entire department that does nothing but making sure we are regulated. We have an entire department that does nothing to me but making sure we are following regulations and that we have SOPs for everything. I tell people that we're the most SOP organization. I know standard operational procedure to make sure that everything from the time that the person comes on the big red bus or donor center until the time it goes out the door to a hospital, everything is done by the book and regulated. And it happens 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because blood donations are needed all the time, because blood transfusions never stop.

Speaker 3: 7:40

One blood serves 250 hospitals a little more than that now, across five states, and we have to make sure that every blood donation is maximized to its fullest potential and goes to a patient exactly when and where it's needed. And it's quite a task. Blood centers operate under that same principle, no matter where you go, you're right. So when you go into a blood center or a big red bus and you've never been there before, you're a first-time donor. We're happy to see you. We expect it'll take about 45 minutes or so. You'll go through a general like a mini health checkup, a screening, and after you do that you actually donate. The first time you probably you're going to do whole blood, because we don't know who you are, we don't even know your blood type. But after we know your blood type, then we will slot you in the best donation process and I think you've been doing that before. You've given platelets as well, right?

Speaker 2: 8:41

Yeah, so I've done. I've done platelets. I know that that is something that's given to cancer patients because of the chemotherapy that that reduces and I'm not obviously not a doctor, but I know there's. There's different types, so the whole blood is like if I, if I have an accident and I lose a lot of blood, I may need whole blood at the hospital, right? And then the platelets are more for people going through treatments. What are some of the other types of blood that is utilized in other ways that people donate?

Speaker 3: 9:08

When you give a whole unit of blood on Big Red, buster or Dalmatian Center, that unit of blood goes to our biologic centers. We have labs in several locations and it's taken into different. It's called fractionation. It's separated into components red blood cells, platelets and plasma and that's why we say one donation can impact three different people. So that's why, because it goes in different directions and during the entire process computers know exactly where every component is. And also test tubes that are taken at the time of your donation. You've probably seen those test tubes that they take first. Those go to our laboratory in St Petersburg. It's the nation's largest testing laboratory. It tests all the blood from one blood and multiple blood centers around the country and once it passes the test there it continues through the process here and then is processed and goes to a hospital patient. On average. Blood types are all different but if you had to have an average for it, probably three to five days that it goes to a patient.

Speaker 2: 10:14

So what is talk about need? Because it seems like we go through cycles. We hear on the news that there's a big need for blood donations and then we don't hear about it too often. I mean, obviously there's a need all the time, but does it fluctuate and like, how long does it last? Like, if I give blood today, how you said, three to five days, well, how I can tell you it never makes 42 days.

Speaker 3: 10:39

Blood centers operate on a different principle than they did years ago. We used to call them blood banks because you used to hold on to blood for a period of time. Let's realize, the population everywhere has increased and the efficiency of the whole process makes it so that we're not storing blood for a long period of time. And that's great because you know it's processed and efficiently given to the hospital and hospital patient where it's needed. So it never makes that 42 days. It'll be stored for a period of time and different blood types move faster. If you're O negative or O positive and I don't know which one you are it's going to go fast. And the reason why is because 38% of the population is O positive All right, that's a good chunk of the donor pool, and 7% is O negative and that's the universal blood type. So the universal blood type is the type of blood that can be given to any patient when it's needed. So the bulk of the donations and transfusions are in that 7% and 38% together. So that goes very fast.

Speaker 3: 11:53

That's in and out. Others like AB negative or, you know, e positive, less likely. But what we do is when we know that you have, let's say, ab negative, for example. We would then probably ask you would you want to donate in a different process, possibly to give platelets? And then that's why we have a program called Target your Type. Once you know your blood type, we communicate with you. Would you like to do that, you know, to give platelets and maybe plasma concurrently?

Speaker 3: 12:23

Or if you're O positive or O negative or B positive, we might ask you to do double red cells, and I don't know if you've ever encountered that, but in some of our big red buses and our donor centers we do have the machines that can take two units of red blood cells. That does not mean we're taking two units of whole blood so that you walk out of there with no blood. It's really we're just taking the red blood cells. But what that does is that that defers you out from the normal 56 days of giving red blood cells to the 112. So that you're on a different track. So we have people who are donating for different reasons to target their type, and they're on different schedules, if you want to call it that. But it's very efficient to do it that way and when you're able to give, to maximize that donation. It helps us and the hospital and the patients.

Speaker 2: 13:15

Sometimes there are disasters that happen around the country, around the world and, uh, people in florida may donate blood for somebody out in california. How does that work? Do all the blood centers kind of communicate with one another? Um, I don't have to go to california if there's something that happens there to give blood, right that's right now.

Speaker 3: 13:36

Blood centers operate in a consortium as american association of blood banks. In america, blood centers operate in a consortium. There's the American Association of Blood Banks and America's Blood Centers in Washington DC that are constantly communicating the overall country's inventory of blood components so that, if something happens, we're able to move it very rapidly to where it's needed. And I'll give you a couple examples the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 in Orlando, or the Parkland school shooting, pensacola shooting back a few years ago, las Vegas. Whenever that happens, blood centers work in tandem to make sure that the blood center at that location gets what it needs. The units are flown in. I mean, we work with the airlines to make it as efficient as possible. So, yes, you're absolutely right, because we understand the importance of having blood where it's needed.

Speaker 3: 14:32

Part of the problem that we find in general is that only 5% to 10 percent of the population donate blood, when 60 percent of the population is eligible. So we spend a lot of time on our social media channels, on our YouTube channel, on our website and on the donors that we have contact with to please let them know how important their blood donation is, because, as we've said it many times during disasters and we've had. If you remember, after the Pulse night club shooting in Orlando, there were thousands of people standing in line to donate blood, and that's wonderful because it replenishes the blood supply. But the thing to remember is it's the blood donors who gave days before that disaster ever happened that were the ones who gave the blood that goes to those patients. So that's why we encourage people to give on a regular basis and not wait for a disaster. It's good that they respond, yes, but unfortunately we'll have them respond and then they go back to a normal day of not thinking about blood donation.

Speaker 2: 15:41

So you mentioned eligibility. Tell us who is eligible to give blood.

Speaker 3: 15:45

Anybody at 16 years old or older and at least 110 pounds. 16 and 17-year-olds need permission from their parents. Once you're 18, you're your own agent and you can give. There's no upper age limit. As a matter of fact, I have been communicating with some of our top gallon donors in OneBlood over the last couple of weeks because we're thinking about doing our own podcast with these people. We've got people who are in their 90s donating blood. Some people think that's not possible. It is as long as you're healthy, you can donate blood. So there's no upper age limit.

Speaker 2: 16:22

What constitutes healthy, like if I have a cold, obviously I don't want to go in and give blood. Is there anything else that a person might have that would restrict them, or maybe something that you've heard of that people may have that doesn't restrict them, that you might be surprised about?

Speaker 3: 16:40

Yeah, so we will give you the screening, which will take your temperature, your vitals, you know, your heart rate, pulse, your hemoglobin and you know see if that works. Then we also have the questionnaire. The questionnaire asks you a list of questions like where have you traveled, um, you know? Have you recently, um, you know, been exposed to any particular thing? Uh, that that then of course will, uh, you know, get us to a another screening, uh point where we know that you're okay. But, of course, if we ask people, if you don't feel well and you're sick, you know, don't, don't present to donate blood, wait until you feel well.

Speaker 2: 17:25

I've done that screening so many times that I always laugh at the question about being in France in like 1985.

Speaker 3: 17:28

Yeah, yeah, well, you know, a lot of things over just the last year has changed. For example, mad cow disease was something that where there was really no viable tests for it in laboratory. So for a long period of time people who lived in England and other places Ireland for example could not donate blood, and it was really it was kind of tough because we had to have a lot of people here who'd say I'd love to do it. Well, last year the FDA said we're going to change the guidance on that. You are now allowed to donate blood. We also changed a policy that gay and bisexual men are not able to donate blood simply because they identify as gay and bisexual, and that was kind of an outcrop of the Pulse nightclub shooting. It took a while but it really sped the process through the FDA changing that policy. They had basically what was a lifetime ban for anyone who presented as gay or bisexual, but then science was way ahead of that questionnaire and they were able to change that over the last year. So that was something that in one blood was actually involved in that policy change with a study on a two-year study in multiple cities.

Speaker 3: 18:45

So that's another example of now people could donate who previously could not, also for a long time. You might remember if we'd ask you if you had a tattoo and and there, uh, I remember there was a year deferral on tattoos. Now there's no deferral if you, as long as the tattoo is healed and you've gone to a regulated state where tattoos regulate, you can donate. So the good example of opening up the pipeline. And that's extremely important because, as I said, you know, with only five to 10 percent of people donating blood, that we really need people to step up and realize that they are eligible. And one of the things we're really concentrating on are young people to let them know we need them because the future of the blood supply depends on having young people get in the process, in the habit of donating blood.

Speaker 2: 19:43

So you are. You mentioned at the very start that OneBlood is a not for profit organization and obviously there are many organizations across the country that do similar things that you do Are, most of them, not for profit. I wonder if sometimes that might be something that makes people hesitant about donating.

Speaker 3: 20:04

Yeah, all blood centers that operate under the regulations of the federal government and you can't operate outside of it. So you have to be what is called a not-for-profit organization, because when we're asking people to donate blood, we can't pay them. So we can give them gift cards, we can give them T-shirts, that kind of thing. So that's the principle behind that. So they are all not-for-profit organizations, which we collect, test the blood-separated components and then it goes to the hospital. So it operates under the same principle for all blood centers.

Speaker 2: 20:45

So, pat, you had mentioned the podcast and having some of the older donors on, tell us about the podcast that OneBlood is doing, how can people find it and if people want to find out more information, just about giving blood as a whole, because, again, june 14th, world Blood Donation Day we want to celebrate those people that are donating and encourage more people to do so.

Speaker 3: 21:06

Yeah, the podcast is called Share your Power Podcast. It's on all the platforms. It's also on YouTube and on our website, and what we try to do with this podcast is not bore people with statistics about blow donation. What we do is we find the people whose lives have changed or been saved, and you know it's very compelling. I'll give you just a fine example, if you've got a few moments here, of course.

Speaker 3: 21:34

A few years ago we had a little girl in miami. She was pakistani and she um needed, um, a bone marrow transfusion and she was getting, uh, uh, she was getting blood transfusions as well, but the doctors uh was transfused, her realized she had a reaction, uh, and they took more tests trying to figure out what was wrong. What was wrong was she was missing an antigen, and antigen is a blood component and she was missing one that most of us have called the Indian bee. And because she was missing that anytime she was given a blood transfusion from anyone else that has the Indian bee, she's going to have a blood transfusion reaction. So we had to find somebody else that was missing that same antigen. And to find somebody missing that antigen is like finding a needle in a haystack, and it started around Miami and then it went through Florida and then we found out about it in communications from our department that handles this.

Speaker 3: 22:44

We have a laboratory that does cross-matching reference labs what's called and they're like we were having problems. Can you guys help us Put the call out? And so we did. We did a Facebook Live and within a few minutes it went viral. We'd never had anything like that happen. We were getting calls from any network that you could imagine BBC. It was just nonstop. It was a lot, but it was very good because we got the word out around the world, and so we found four people in the world who matched her.

Speaker 3: 23:23

That was missing that antigen Two of them in the United States, one in England and one in Australia and we got them to Miami as quickly as possible and she was transfused, gave her the opportunity then to find that other person for bone marrow match and her life is saved. She is a. She is a very happy little girl, but that was an all call an example of finding, you know, a very rare blood type for that person. So we've had other instances where people don't even realize what blood centers do in that respect. They do research, they do stem cell extractions. We're highly involved in biologics and blood component exploration and also new ways of testing blood and that type of thing, because it helps us. It helps us save lives, basically.

Speaker 2: 24:22

Yeah, and you know we hear a lot of negative things about social media recently and what a blessing to have it in that case, right, because I'm sure in a traditional media world that that message would have never gotten out to the whole world so quickly. To save that, yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:37

Yeah, there's no question about it. I mean, social media did pay off in that respect. You know, they saw a little girl, a young girl, who was in dire need and they made the all call and we found it. It was just a, it was a miracle, to be honest with you, but it paid off, and so that's why we the other part of what we do every day in my job is to tell everybody that we need a diverse blood supply. We need the diversity of the blood supply to match the diversity of the population and, as you well know, in Tampa Bay area, orlando, miami, we have an extremely diverse population, diverse population, and that's a fine example why, to match people, in some cases we have components of the blood antigens that prevent them from being able to take blood from just anybody. So that's why it's important that we have people from all walks of life giving blood.

Speaker 2: 25:35

Yeah, and there's no such thing as synthetic blood, right, it's not like oil, right, so we definitely need people to do it.

Speaker 3: 25:44

That is true. It is the lifeblood. I mean that cannot be replicated. I mean they've tried to do that in the past but they realized that it is absolutely the thing that does save lives.

Speaker 2: 25:56

Pat Michaels, director of Media and Public Relations with OneBlood. Thank you so much for your time, pat. I know you're super busy and I know we spent some extra time chatting, but I really enjoyed it and your information was super helpful and folks just go do it all right, it's a short amount of time and you truly can impact and save somebody's life.

Speaker 3: 26:17

No, there's no question about it, you really really can. You can sit there and get blood and take you what? A few minutes, 30 to 45 minutes. It's the thought that you can save someone's life, and we have a couple of programs that we're now giving feedback so that people will know where their blood's going, what hospital, so they could see that. And then sometimes in another program called Message my Donor, we have the ability of patients, doctors and nurses to actually send a note to the blood donor to say thank you, so you can really realize you're making an impact. Super cool, thanks, pat, appreciate your time.

Speaker 3: 26:55

Thanks, todd, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4: 26:57

My name's Jalen. I work at reemployability on the care team and I donate blood because I know that I'm helping someone and even if they don't end up using the blood that I'm donating, I know that I still attempted to help somebody, which makes me feel good.

Speaker 6: 27:11

My name is Alex. I work in accounting as accounts payable and collection specialist and I donate blood to save lives almost every time the red bus comes here unless it's like outside of my donation time, I enjoy it. I think people get hope, it keeps people alive and I just like to feel good that I was able to help someone stay alive.

Speaker 5: 27:30

My name is Jas and I work with re-employability as a client service coordinator, and I donate blood because, from the country I'm at and from my family in Haiti, I have several family and friends who have sickle cell anemia and I know how important it is to have people like myself, who are willing to give back for something so important as this.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Pat said something that really stuck out to me when he was talking about his Share your Power podcast. He said they find people whose lives have been changed. So I invite you to change someone's life today. Schedule a time to give blood and smile when you're talking to somebody on the phone. Both will absolutely do the trick. Thanks for listening to REA Audio. Please make sure to follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you. Have a great rest of your week.